I have just enjoyed watching the Chicago Cubs win a World Series game. In economic terms, it produced “utility” for me, a highfaluting way of saying it made me feel better, more satisfied, happier. But that is only part of…
Neither Clinton nor Trump will ruin our nation
Wildly exaggerated rhetoric is one of the most visible manifestations of how dysfunctional U.S. politics have become. Donald Trump clearly leads the pack of political candidates in this, but nonsensical and inflammatory claims bubble out of all sides of the…
Some get profiled, others get privilege
Some people pooh-pooh the existence of bigotry, but I myself, an elderly white guy, have been profiled against repeatedly recently — and it ain’t pretty folks! Yet often snap judgments based on cursory information, including appearance, are economically efficient. Social…
2016 economics Nobels a timely teaching moment
It couldn’t have been more perfectly timed. On Monday of last week, the Nobel Foundation announced the award of the 2016 prize for economics to Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmstrom. On Wednesday, John Stumpf, the Wells Fargo CEO, who had…